Ivan the Terrible, Part I

Ivan the Terrible, Part I (Ivan Groznyy)
Directed by Sergei Eisenstein
Written by Sergei Eisenstein
1944/USSR
Mosfilm/TsOKS
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#171 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Ivan: Two Romes have fallen. A third stands. There shall not be a fourth.[/box]

I have never quite been able to warm up to this gloriously shot but eccentrically acted classic.

The story starts with Ivan’s (Nikolai Cherkasov) coronation as Tsar of Moscovy.  After the ceremony, Ivan announces his intention to rule Russia with an iron hand and to unify her under his leadership.  To do this, will require taking power away from the many boyars who currently rule locally.  Needless to say, this is not a popular idea with the boyars at court.  They immediately begin plotting against him.  Chief among the plotters is his ghastly aunt Efrosinia (Serafima Birman) who hopes to put her half-witted son Vladimir on the throne.

The coronation is followed by the wedding of Ivan and the steadfast Anastasia.  One of Efrosinia’s main ploys is to get Ivan’s friend Kurbsky, who is in love with Anastasia, to put in for Vladimir.  Kurbsky vacilates throughout the film.

At the coronation, emissaries from Kazan to the east arrive.  They tell Ivan that he might just as well commit suicide as they are soon going to conquer Moscovy.  Ivan decides the better course is to attack Kazan himself.  Kurbsky proves to be an able general in this battle despite his continuing inclination to treachery.  Ivan becomes ill on the road home and is near death at one point.  His destiny saves him.

Ivan sets his sights west to the Baltics.  He sees Russia as having a manifest destiny to govern lands that will give the country access to the Baltic Sea.  He sends off Kurbsky to lead the war effort there.  Efrosinia takes matters into her own hands by poisoning Anastasia.  His wife’s death brings Ivan to his lowest ebb of all.  As he is prostrate by her coffin, one of his loyal commoner supporters, acting as a kind of Greek chorus, starts rattling off the desertion and betrayal of one boyar after another.  Ivan rallies.  Instead of immediately waging war against the boyars however, Ivan decides to leave Moscow for a small village until Muscovites beg him to return.  This they do in a glorious, singing mass procession over the snow.

I have seen this several times over the years and many of the shots remain etched in my memory.  The settings are magnificent as is the Prokoviev score.  The acting, on the other hand, is full of the kind of broad, overstated emotions reminiscent of the acting style used in silent films, but still more exaggerated.  I find the style tremendously distancing.  The action also drags at only a little over 90 minutes.  Stalin was a huge fan of Ivan and of this particular film, which he commissioned, and Eisenstein received the Stalin Prize.  Ivan the Terrible, Part II, featuring a mad Tsar Ivan, received a very different reception and was suppressed

Montage of scenes with religious music